


Damaged Goods

by champagne_enema



Series: Damaged Goods [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, Friends With Benefits, Implied/Referenced Bulimia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Langst, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Why Did I Write This?, hooooo boy there's a lot of angst, vague nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 00:59:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13752912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/champagne_enema/pseuds/champagne_enema
Summary: Alive.Shiro feels alive when he looks at Lance.He hasn’t felt that way in a long time, if he’s being honest. He feels like he’s been existing but not reallyliving.





	Damaged Goods

**Author's Note:**

> this is an idea I've had for a long time but I know I won't be able to give it the justice it deserves, so I drabbled (procrastinated) and though I'd share it 
> 
> ((unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own))

_Alive._

Shiro feels alive when he looks at Lance.

He hasn’t felt that way in a long time, if he’s being honest. He feels like he’s been existing but not really _living_ . He places the blame on the PTSD, on the ache in his arm that’s been blown to bits just like his mental stability. He thinks, _this isn’t me, this isn’t what I was born to be, this isn’t what I was supposed to do._

_This isn’t how it was supposed to end._

The thoughts swirl in his head like a cyclone, like a harsh wind pushing at a lone piece of paper, _twirling and twirling and twirling_ until it’s shredded to pieces.

It's exhausting.

But when Lance gives him a wry grin around a cigarette, sad blue eyes shimmering and holding him captive, the thoughts don’t stop―but they calm down. He still hates himself, even when Lance is curled against his scarred chest (no, he _especially_ hates himself), but the disgust and the sorrow is morphed into a more tender mindset. He still loathes himself, but Lance is easier to love than hate.

Lance, all skin and bones (His ribs poke out, spine protruding from his back, delicate and slender fingers and ankles and toes, gaunt cheekbone,; nothing but a skeleton covered in honeyed skin), with his sorrowful blue eyes and his watery grin. Lance, with his choked voice when he says “Life fucking sucks.” (he says this a lot). Lance, with his thin fingers wrapped around a joint, _“I miss him. I miss him. I miss him”_ whispered in Shiro’s ear when the lights are out and the streetlight, yellow and pale, glitters across his skin. _I miss him._  

Because, here’s the shitty part: Shiro’s not the only damaged one. He thinks that’s what drew them together, like magnets. Their pain, misery, hopelessness. Yes, Shiro is nothing but burn scars across his body, missing limbs and nightmares waking him like clockwork. Shiro is all kinds of screwed up, can’t listen to loud noises without flinching, can’t fucking _breathe_ when he’s given time to think. But Lance is all kinds of screwed.

Shiro remembers when Lance told him. After fucking each other senseless, brutal, sweaty and desperate for release. Laying in Shiro’s old sheets, Lance wrapped around him with a joint slipped between his pretty pink lips.

_“My husband killed himself six months ago, and I’m living with his psychotic, abusive mother.”_

 He said it like a joke. He held up his finger, where a thin silver wedding band was wrapped around the delicate digit. _“The bastard blew his brains out in a Motel 6 four hours from here.”_

Blue eyes, cerulean, crystal, glittering, looked up at him. Thin lips pulled into that characteristic sad smile. _“I’ll never forgive him. But I still love him.”_

And there it is. Lance is damaged goods, still in love with his ex-husband. He doesn’t eat, he smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, and he’s living with his manipulative mother-in-law.

They both orbit around each other, caught in a flurry of misery. Lance and Shiro, broken sons of bitches, like shattered glass digging into your skin, blood red dripping down _drip drip drip_. Lance and Shiro, caught in their pathetic lives, existing but not living.

They don’t judge each other, don’t nag at the bad habits. Shiro says nothing when Lance shoves his fingers down his throat in the bathroom, awful retching sounds filling his apartment. He doesn’t say anything when Lance lights up another cigarette, doesn’t say anything when he stands on the rail of his fire escape and says _“I wish I had the courage to jump.”_ And Lance says nothing when Shiro bites his nails raw. He stays silent when Shiro punches the walls until his knuckles are bloody and bruised, when Shiro opens the pill bottle and pops them like candy because it numbs his world for a little while.

That’s part of the beauty of their relationship. It’s toxic and fucked up, is what it is. But it’s addictive. The two call each other, fuck each others brains out (it feels good, makes Shiro feel alive when he sinks into Lance, when Lance pushes into him), talk about the shit that’s gone wrong, and then leave. No good morning kisses, no breakfast for two. _“It’s just sex.”_ Lance had said after the first time. _“I still love him, it’s just sex.”_ Shiro doesn’t push for more because even though he loves Lance, he knows he couldn’t handle more. They’re both too broken to have something as pure as a relationship. They’ve been wised up, no longer naive. They know true love is bullshit, acknowledge that it’s just sex.

But that doesn’t stop Shiro from shoving down a sob when Lance pulls away and leaves like a shadow in the night. He needs him like he needs air. He’s desperate for more, more kisses, more smiles, more everything. He wants to inhale Lance, hold him in his lungs and breathe him out. He wants everything he has to give. Shiro is a selfish, selfish man who wants more than he can give. He wants to eat Lance whole.

But they’re both damaged goods, too broken to mend each other, too blind to see how deep the damage runs, like roots burrowing under the surface.  

“ _I_ _miss him, I still love him, I’ll never forgive him.”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on [tumblr](https://smelly-milk.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/smellymilky?lang=en)


End file.
